


Wisdom to Know the Difference

by particolored_socks



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Ghost Fantine, Javert Lives, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Slow Build, Suicide Attempt, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:43:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/particolored_socks/pseuds/particolored_socks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dead doesn't necessarily mean gone. In the ugly morning hours of June 7th, Javert falls over the bridge's edge, and Fantine's ghost pulls him out of the river. Now they'll just have to live with the skeletons in their collective closets - for a given value of "live", anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know there are probably a metric boatload of Javert Lives aus where Valjean is the one to pull him out of the water. I wanted one that included Fantine - because there can never be enough F/J fic, and especially never enough Fantine fic - so here she is, in all her ghostly glory.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ending, and a beginning.

Fantine has been a ghost for nine years.

This is, she presumes, because she has unfinished business to attend to. When she saw Cosette safe with Valjean in the convent, she thought she would finally go Beyond; and though she would have liked to see what Heaven was like, truth be told she is grateful she was able to see her child grow.

The Pontmercy boy is clumsy, but kindhearted, which is more than Fantine could say for Felix Tholomyès. (Oh yes, she had seen him; he was one of the first people she visited as a ghost; and to be frank, Cosette is the only reason she does not regret him.) So Fantine helped guide Marius to her daughter, and she had never been happier than when Cosette and Marius had their first conversation in the garden of rue Plumet.

But her work is not done. The events of June 5th and 6th made this clear.

When Javert turns from his spot outside Valjean’s house, Fantine follows him. From what she knows of the man – and she does not know much, for all that she has the ability to walk through walls, because she values privacy almost as much as Valjean does – he would never allow a criminal to walk free, especially one that he knows is so dangerous.

(For Valjean, as patient and as kind as he may be, has proven himself blatantly disregarding of the law when it comes to achieving his goals. Couple that with his immense strength, lack of compunction for lying, and history of disguising himself, Fantine reluctantly admits that an officer of the law would have good reason to be worried.)

So you’d think Javert would leap at this opportunity to imprison him for good. When Valjean requested the chance to return Marius to his home, Fantine was certain Javert would refuse; but tonight, it seems, is a night for action outside of character, and this troubles her.

So she follows him back to the precinct.

Ghosts can be corporeal or incorporeal as they choose; transparent as a shadow she hovers over his shoulder to read the painstaking letter he writes, and listens to the scratch of the pen’s nib on the paper.

As calm and rational as each item on the list is phrased, still Fantine sees something in them. Each and every item that points out an injustice in the police system has a story behind it – each and every item on the list displays a crack in the wooden heart.

It is about one o’clock in the morning on June 7th, and when Javert leaves the precinct Fantine carefully moves the letter to the prefect’s desk –

(how many times has she haunted this place?)

—and flies through the walls, and follows him.

She finds him in the middle of the Pont au Change, directly between the prefecture and the Cathedral, staring down at the roiling black waters of the Seine.

What was it that caused the spiderweb cracks in this wooden man? It must have been Valjean. When he let him go, Fantine was shocked to hear a “vous” escape Javert’s lips when he shouted that he’d rather Valjean killed him. So perhaps that was the beginning of –

\--the end.

Suddenly he takes off his hat and sets it on the ledge.

“Oh no you don’t,” Fantine breathes. She catches at his sleeve with her fingers, but they pass through him, silvery and intangible with distress. He stands on the parapet with one graceful movement, and she follows him up, clutching his shoulder, her hands now as solid as his.

“No, _don’t!_ ” she shouts.

The cold stars in the sky faintly illuminate his surprised face – he heard her.

“What --?” he starts to say, and as recognition dawns, he takes an involuntary step backward.

“ _No!_ ” – and he falls, and she dives down.

The Seine is most treacherous here, its currents quick and deep. As he hits the water she latches onto him and pulls with all her inhuman strength, fighting the current, fighting him as he kicks and lashes out at her. She hauls him up to the surface and he takes a great wheezing gasp of air before kicking away from her again, and this time she grows claws to catch him in her grip.

“Stop it!” she screams at him. “I’m trying to help you!”

“I don’t want your help, whore,” he spits.

“Well, too _fucking_ bad. You can keep insulting me –” she hauls at him again, pulling him away from the worst of the current “— _after_ I’ve finished saving your life.”

It takes a good ten minutes’ worth of struggling in the icy water before she finally drags him up to the quay. He lies there on the stone, coughing and sputtering, and she stumbles to her feet.

“How … are you dry,” he rasps. One broad hand feebly rises to describe her figure in the air. “You should be just as soaked as I am.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t.” He sits up with a quiet grunt and begins to wring out his hair. Fantine leans against the quay wall, still solid for the time being, and lets out a slow sigh.

“Cranky old man,” she grumbles quietly.

“Hussy,” he shoots back. But his breathing is still uneven, and he’s beginning to shiver in the night air, and Fantine is no expert on the living but she is fairly certain he is in some sort of shock.

“Here,” she says, and crouches down beside him. “Let’s get that greatcoat off of you. It can’t help to keep wearing it, it’s so waterlogged.”

He must be absolutely exhausted, because he doesn’t argue anymore. He’s stiff, and he doesn’t move unless he absolutely has to, but soon enough she has him up and his sopping-wet greatcoat around her own shoulders; and two figures, one tall and dark and another tiny in grayscale, climb up the quay’s stairs and into the streets of Paris.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They yell at each other a bit. Fantine has a feeling this is going to be par for the course.

They stop outside the entrance of Javert’s apartment building and stare at each other for a solid minute.

Javert is tall and broad-shouldered, but even as ramrod-straight as his spine is, those broad shoulders still shiver slightly from the cold; his clothing is drenched, and he looks oddly smaller without his greatcoat. His hair in the bleak light of a street lamp is slicked back with water, flat to his skull.

He is scowling ferociously. But when _doesn’t_ Javert scowl like his life depends on it?

(Ha, ha.)

Fantine herself is a good two heads shorter than Javert. Under the lamplight the only color to her figure is the slight shimmering gold of her hair: the one vanity in life that remains. Even her clear blue eyes faded to gray long ago; but the gold on her head and the pearls in her mouth that life took from her, she reclaimed in death.

It’s a wonder that he recognized her, she thinks wryly. Nine years ago, he knew her only as a violent prostitute with missing teeth.

“I’m going with you,” she says.

“No,” he says, bluntly.

“Yes, I am.” She folds her arms. “You’re still shivering. And someone needs to make certain you don’t – stick your head in the fireplace, or hang yourself, or something else horrible.”

He barks out a tired laugh. “No.”

“Would you rather I drag one of the other police officers here to keep an eye on you?”

“No.”

“What about Valjean?” she asks. He recoils violently, a split second of jerky movement, before turning immobile and impassive again. “He would recognize me, too. I don’t think he’d hesitate to follow me here.”

Finally he grinds out between gritted teeth: “Fine. You can come up.”

He turns on his heel sharply, opens the door, and with a quick nod to the landlady, he ascends the staircase. Fantine follows.

Javert’s flat is small and spartan, with only a narrow bed, a dresser, a small table, and a chair as furniture; the kitchen, such as it is, is cramped and similarly sparse; the bathroom isn’t even worth mentioning. The only indications that someone actually lives here are a woolen scarf looped around one of the bedposts, a cheap curtain at the window to preserve privacy, and a slight dent in the shabby pillow.

Javert removes his boots at the door and glares at her. “I expect death is so utterly mind-numbing that you have nothing better to do. Well,” he says, removing the wet muddied ribbon from his hair, “you had better keep your eyes and your hands to yourself.”

She gapes at him. “Is that what you think? That I saved your life because – because I had something _salacious_ in mind? I’m _dead_ , you moron.”

“Certainly. But could you not also go bother – that girl, your daughter that Valjean is keeping for you.” He says the name Valjean like it pains him. Peels himself out of his coat, leaving him in waistcoat, shirtsleeves, trousers, and socks. It’s the most human Fantine has ever seen him – and yet here he is, snapping out words as though his wooden heart had never splintered.

“Cosette is safe now, and Marius is alive. He’ll survive. They’ll get married soon, I know it.”

Now he’s the one gaping at her.

“Pontmercy – and your daughter, married? I should have known.”

He erupts into ugly hacking laughter, more of a snarl than a sound of mirth.

“Of course! Why _else_ would he be dragging the boy through the sewers? Why else would they be at the same damned barricade? the same one I infiltrated! Clearly there is no such thing as coincidence! Clearly God intended our lives be tangled in such a mess!”

“Perhaps He did.”

Javert glowers at her. “Well, I intended to resign from Him, but clearly you had other intentions.”

“You stubborn ass!” She throws her hands up. “Will you hate me now for saving your life? Should I have let the Seine break your neck, and instead dragged your ghost out of the water? I saw what happened at the barricade, you moron, I know y—”

“You saw?”

He’s standing as still as he possibly can, and still a fine tremor runs up and down him, a barely-restrained dance of fatigue harrying his limbs. It’s been two hideously long days and two hideously long nights, and the sudden light of anger in his silver eyes is frightening to behold.

“You saw, and you decided that my life being saved once wasn’t enough, you just had to put me in your debt too.” He starts toward her and stops abruptly, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “He had every reason to kill me, and did not. You had every reason to let me drown, and did not. Will every ghost from my past rise up to haunt me now?”

“No,” she says, “just me.”

“Well, that is good! That is _just!_ ” He spits the word bitterly, acid on his tongue. “Yes, certainly you and he are the only ghosts I need.”

“—Well.” She folds her arms and leans against the door, stubbornly corporeal. “Hate me if you will, but I’m not leaving you to shiver yourself to death.”

A knock sounds, and they both startle back from it. Fantine backs into the corner as the door opens.

The landlady, short and plump and elderly, squints into the apartment. “Monsieur Inspector?”

“Yes, Madame Moreau,” Javert says.

“Is there something wrong? I heard a bit of shouting.” She smooths the front of her dress, a brief fussy movement. “And you know it’s loud if I hear it all the way from the ground floor, Monsieur Inspector.”

“Pardon me, madame,” says Fantine softly. “We were only having a – discussion.”

“Very loud discussion, especially at such a late hour.” Madame Moreau peers at her. “And who might you be, mademoiselle?”

“An acquaintance,” Javert says. He folds his arms over his chest, tight and uncomfortable. “From … a long time ago.”

“Niece, perhaps?” says Madame Moreau. She chuckles, casts a glance at Javert. “Or daughter?”

“ _No_ ,” they say together, and they both shudder.

“Fine, fine,” she says amiably. She gives Javert a longer considering look. “Well, don’t let me keep you. Just keep the noise level down and we’ll all be fine.”

Madame Moreau takes her time going back down the stairs to her post. Javert shuts and locks the door with meticulous care, and they stare at each other for a moment before Fantine doubles over laughing.

“ _Daughter_ ,” she wheezes.

“You’re laughing,” he says gruffly. “Why are you laughing. That – that isn’t funny.”

“Like hell it isn’t!” She leans against the wall and covers her mouth to stifle the giggles spilling out. “I’m thirty-six years old, I’m too old to be your _daughter_ –”

“You look twenty –”

“Just because you die doesn’t mean _everything_ stops.” She sighs, shakes her head. “But I don’t even want to think about it. Dear God.”

“That makes two of us.” His expression is more disturbed than angry now, and for that Fantine is grateful. He moves over to the dresser and pulls some clothing out of a drawer, then heads towards the tiny bathroom. “Now, _if_ you will excuse me …”

Dry clothing, the river’s silt washed out of his hair, and a fire kindled in the bedroom hearth seem to help, but the shivering has started up again, and his silver eyes have dulled. She glares at him until he sits on the bed, then drags the chair over so she can watch him.

“Are you going to sit there staring at me all night?”

“Like I said. Someone has to make sure you’ll wake up in the morning.” She gently but firmly shoves at his shoulder. “Lie down, you need sleep.”

“I don’t understand … why you care so much.” He lies back, in the manner of a cat who comes at the same time that you call but not because you called, and pulls the blanket up almost to his chin. “Didn’t you think I was the devil?”

“There are worse devils out there than you,” she murmurs.

“I find that … hard to believe.” His deep voice is heavy with sleep. When his eyes finally close, and his breathing evens out, Fantine takes a deep breath of her own, stokes the fire again, and resigns herself to the night watch.


End file.
